Do I have to be paralyzed to operate my smartphone with my brain? Hope not! đ
"A novel brain-computer interface developed by a New York-based company called Synchron was just used to help a paralyzed patient send messages using their Apple device for the very first time. ...
But virtually all of these [previous] devices, amazing as they may sound, have one major flaw: they require hundreds of tiny electrodes to be implanted directly into multiple areas of the brain. That’s obviously problematic for a number of reasons, and only patients who are desperate and have nothing to lose would typically agree to such an invasive surgery. The risks are not trivial. Scar tissue can build up around the site of surgery, thereby making the implant less effective or even useless, requiring new surgical interventions. There is also a risk of life-threatening complications, both during surgery and in the postoperative period if the materials the sensors are made from are rejected by the immune system, triggering an unpredictable reaction.
The Synchron interface, however, is not implanted directly into the brain. While it requires some surgery, the device is inserted just into the top of the brain’s motor cortex via blood vessels, rather than inserting electrodes straight into neural tissue. This is a much less invasive and safer procedure, one that doesn’t require highly trained neurosurgeons, making it much more affordable."
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The stentrode™ is an endovascular implant, placed in a vein alongside the motor cortex which generates any signal related to movement.
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A receiver device implanted in the chest transmits the neural signals to a decoder.
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A machine learning algorithm translates those signals into specific digital commands.
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